In June 2022 Annette Meyer and her partner Ed Briem bought the Cable Bay Café business and when Annette’s mother passed away they went back to Europe for a couple of months to be with family. She told me at the time that when they got back the road had been closed by slips when a storm wreaked havoc on the region while they were away.
(This is an edited article from TopTastes.co.nz, written by Neil Hodgson, first printed in the Nelson Mail)
Ed says “We really appreciate the efforts everyone made to make sure the road was open as quickly as possible, even it if was one way in some places. It meant we could fully renovate the café and get it up and running for the 2022 summer season.”
To help mitigate the impacts of the road closure Annette and Ed have decided to offer dinner Friday night, stay open all day Saturday, including for dinner, and Sundays from 9am until 6pm, depending on the weather.
The menu for evenings will be slightly different but with lots of familiar flavours, “we are licenced so we will have food you can enjoy with a beer or glass of wine too.” says Ed. “It will mainly be a burgers menu but with interesting flavours not normally associated with burgers. We will have a specials board, fresh seasonal starters and salads and, of course, Annette’s famous desserts.”
There will be classic burgers like a beef burger, pulled pork as well as one or two vegetarian options. Annette, who used to be a chef in an organic restaurant in Zürich, will bring her most popular vegetarian recipes to the menu but adding a “Kiwi twist”. The sides will be much more interesting than just fries. Annette told me “We don’t deep fry anything here so there won’t be fries but there will be a crispy baked potatoes, grilled corn and we will be using our own tomato sauce we make using tomatoes grown by Romano’s on Cable Bay Road.”
All the food is made fresh and in-house, other than the beers and Gelato Roma’s ice creams of course. But their famous bagels will still be available and the burger buns are made in-house, fresh every day, too.
Ed told me they love local producers and suppliers, so they support them as much as possible.
The last word goes to Annette “We are lucky to have such a delightful place and hopefully the evening weather will be nice and settled until the end of March, which is our traditional end of summer, so people can enjoy our new evening meals.”
Bookings for evening will be essential as they already have a waitlist for the first evening dinners that start soon. Check out their website for updates, reservations and more information.
